The U.S. Forest Service

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writer Dan Hopper (Ranker, The New Yorker) and comedian Chet Wild (Unpopular Opinion podcast network) for a look at why the U.S. Forest Service is secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• Dan Hopper on Twitter
• Dan Hopper’s writing for The New Yorker
• Chet Wild on Twitter
• ‘The 90s Sucked’ podcast (Unpopular Opinion)

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• Museum of Durham History

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Natural Rivals: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of America’s Public Lands by John Clayton 
• The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan 
• A Trailblazing Plan to Fight California Wildfires (The New Yorker)
• Resource Library: U.S. Forest Service (National Geographic)
• The Unsung Ranger Behind the U.S. Forest Service’s Iconic Signs (Atlas Obscura)
• USDA website: “Meet the Forest Service”
• USDA website: “The U.S. Forest Service By the Numbers”
• How Big Is Texas, Compared With Other Land Masses? (Texas Monthly)
• How Big Is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Science vs. Myth (NOAA) — argues that it’s not comparable to Texas’s size, because it’s multiple patches and it’s not one solid thing.
• the website for Angeles National Forest
• ‘The Big Burn’ of 1910 transformed wildland firefighting. Will 2020 do the same? (NBC News)
• How Fire, Once a Friend of Forests, Became a Destroyer (National Geographic)
• Tree-planting programs can do more harm than good (National Geographic)
• Prisoners Are Getting Paid $1.45 a Day to Fight the California Wildfires (ACLU) — written in 2018.
• Covid Limits California’s Efforts To Fight Wildfires With Prison Labor (The New York Times) — written in 2020.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill to allow inmate firefighters to work professionally after serving prison time (ABC7 News San Francisco)
• Joshua Trees Could Take 200 to 300 Years to Recover From Shutdown Damage (Smithsonian) — this is the January 2019 federal shutdown damage that Chet describes.
• The Triple Nickles: America’s first Black paratroopers and their secret mission in Oregon (KGW8 Portland)
• Why Harry Truman Ended Segregation in the US Military in 1948 (History.com)
• U.S. Forest Service Office of Communications: “Smoke Jumping Into History”
• Attack of Japan’s Killer WWII Balloons, 70 Years Ago (History.com)

Portrait of Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946):